Page 218 - A Handbook Genre Studies in Mass Media

INDUSTRY PERSPECTIVE

television in 1999, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire was a highly success-
ful series in Britain. Its success spawned a series of reality shows on
American television with European roots: Big Brother (Holland), Survivor
(Sweden), American Idol (England), and Trading Spaces (adapted from
Changing Rooms on England’s BBC).

Derivative Programming

All too often, creative thinking “outside of the box” now consists of sim-
ply finding variations on successful genres. This leads to the appearance
of hybrid media, spin-offs, and copycat programming.

Hybrids

A hybrid is a derivative format formed by merging two (or more) success-
ful genres. As an example, in his review of the 2003 TV season, Adam
Sternbergh described the new shows as follows: “‘Joe Millionaire’ was
basically ‘The Bachelor,’ plus lying. ‘I’m A Celebrity: Get Me Out of
Here’ is essentially ‘Survivor,’ but with D-list notables such as Melissa
‘daughter of Joan’ Rivers.” According to professional wrestler Bret (Hit-
22
man) Hart, the recent success of televised professional wrestling can be
attributed to its fusion with another genre—soap operas. Wrestling “has
finally become what it should have been all along, which is soap opera.
Of course, it is one of the weirdest soap operas you’ll ever see.” 23
In like fashion, the reality genre is the fusion of the documentary and
soap opera. Lisa Levenson, the co-executive producer of The Bachelor,
explains: “We wanted to shoot the show like a soap opera. The principal
ingredient is developing characters that viewers can relate to, or watch
and think, ‘At least I am not as screwed up as that person.’” 24
Like the soap opera, reality shows are reflective, in that a single event is
followed by extensive dialogue that considers its implications. Whenever
something happens, cast members are permitted to go to “confessional”
—a room where they can confide to the camera how they feel about
things that happen. For instance, in an episode of Real World (MTV),
the cast worked for a sailing company. Two young women, Cameron and
Robin, decided that they would purposely avoid working by jumping
into the water. This decision was followed by a series of interviews, in
which cast members discussed the possible motives for this act and its
potential repercussions.

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